“What?” Elijah looks confused as he shoves off my hand. “Cardboard, what for?”
I grab him a piece of cardboard and hold it out. He takes it from me with a confused frown. I lead the way up the hill.
“Right. Sit on your cardboard, hold the front back like it’s a sled, and off you go.”
Elijah huffs, but he starts smiling. “Okay, this looks fun. I can be in this.”
He gets all set up, and before I can warn him, he takes off. I stand there watching as he picks up speed, whooping and howling with laughter the whole way down.
“Jeez, he’s going fast,” Devon murmurs.
He gets to the bottom and rolls.
“That was amazing,” Sofia says and punches me lightly in the arm. “You should have warned him to stay away from that section, it’s steeper.”
“He can handle it,” I say with a wink.
Sofia gets on her cardboard, and, within seconds, she’s halfway down the hill. I grab mine and sit down. It’s not as easy as it was when I was a kid, but I shift my weight forward, and I start to rock my way into motion.
By the time I reach the bottom, I want to turn around and go right back up to the top and do it again. Why did we stop doing things like this? When did we stop having fun?
Sofia’s face is glowing, her eyes shiny; she flops back in the grass laughing. “I forgot how much fun it was.”
Devon arrives, almost taking out Elijah’s legs.
“Ow, I’m going to have bruises on my ass.”
“Aw, you have such a pretty ass, it will be a shame to mar it,” I purr at him.
I realise the others have gone silent and swing around. Sofia is watching me with her mouth parted, a glazed look in her eyes.
“You guys have, um, relationships with each other?” she asks. “Just to clarify, in case someone asks.”
“We do. Is that a problem?” I ask her. I’m really hoping it’s not.
The wind blows her very potent and hot scent right at me. Well, that answers that question.
She shakes her head. “Nope!” she squeaks. “No problem.”
“You look a bit flushed,” Devon teases. “Are you feeling over excited?”
“It’s a bit hot,” she admits and looks away.
Elijah licks his lips. Her eyes follow the movement of his tongue.
“Nope,” I say, interrupting. “Today is about Sofia, finding Sofia. We’re not going to go down that route today,” I say to Elijah.
He moans and turns away. “All right, what’s up next?”
I grin. “Follow me.”
I drive us out to the edge of town and pull out a marker from the glove box, which I keep in the car for reasons I have never fully examined.
Sofia will not stop laughing. “How did you know it was me?”
“You had a phase where you drew mustaches on everything. And I was always watching. Go on, get it over with.”
She gets out of the car and races to the sign, standing up on her tiptoes to draw two thick curly lines above the sun’s smiling lips.
